Indonesia Launches First National Condom Campaign

Living in the United States, it is hard to believe that condoms would not be an enormous part of any other country’s safe sex initiative. In this country, you think “safe sex” and your mind automatically visualizes condoms. However, in Indonesia, condoms do not even account for 1% of the types of contraception that are normally used.  There is hope that this will change with Indonesia’s first national condom campaign that will continue for one week and will begin on December 1st, 2007, the same day as World AIDS Day. This campaign’s primary goal is to promote, distribute and educate to the masses about the benefits of condoms against pregnancy and HIV, amongst other sexually transmitted diseases.

With Indonesia considered one of the fastest-rising HIV epidemics in all of Asia, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), this campaign could not come at a better time. The official government reports state that, since 1987, approximately 16,000 Indonesians have been infected with AIDS/HIV. However, there are multitudes of undocumented cases due to a limited number of facilities where Indonesians can actually get tested for HIV. The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) reports that in the nation’s capital, Jakarta, alone, there are anywhere from 90,000 to 130,000 people currently infected with HIV/AIDS.

Despite the Indonesian government’s previous attempts to garner attention and interest in condom use, their focus was primarily on family planning, so the campaign fizzled out as it played to uninterested ears.  The National Family Planning Board which is spearheading this ambitious condom campaign hopes to break through the barriers of what it feels is nationwide ignorance about condoms and how they can be used for safe sex.

Indonesia happens to be one of the world’s most heavily populated nations of Muslims. With this in mind, the National Family Planning Board wants to reach out to Muslim leaders not with the main intention of having these leaders promote condoms, but rather to educate them about the medical benefits of condoms. In this way, the Muslim leaders will have the knowledge to couple with their influence in spreading the word on condoms and their role in safe sex. As more leaders, both government and religious, speak out on the necessity of safe sex, the AIDS epidemic may begin to slow across the nation.

Many health organizations report that intravenous drug abuse is a major culprit in the spread of AIDS/HIV. Add to that the fact that 9 in 10 drug users have admitted to frequently using previously used syringes.  However, a large number of AIDS cases in Indonesia come from another industry that, unfortunately, is booming: the sex industry. Infection rates amongst these prostitutes, both male and female, are almost 1 in 4. UNAIDS reports that clients who frequently visit these prostitutes use condoms only 10% of the time. In a country that is brimming with HIV infection cases and no end in sight, the disregard to condom use and its obvious benefits must be confronted head-on. One can only hope that the National Family Planning Board’s condom campaign is aggressive enough to do just that.